[gkafkg8y8]

Can anyone say what the easiest development platform is to use to write a 2D game that uses code instead of a GUI, has tutorials that don't expect that you know the language/API/environment that well, and is free to use?

I've looked at several, but either I can't develop for iOS/Android for free (beyond the charges to get setup as a developer by required by Apple, Google, etc.) or the barrier to entry always kills my time, then I go onto something else. LÖVE https://love2d.org/ was the only one I actually got anything playable with, but Lua/LÖVE was a little finicky and got frustrating. I want to be up and running and deploying to an emulator with something interesting in no more than 30 minutes, and I don't care how blocky it looks.

Years ago I wrote homebrew games, so I'm not new to concepts required, but I don't want anything too complex.

[Rabidgremlin]

Unity is pretty much free if you make < $100k. I have a tutorial series for writing a 2D game in Unity up on Youtube if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vpf6vFOXTQ&list=PLvUqRm2B9R...

Otherwise I'd suggest you brush off you C skills and use SDL.

Or just tinker with Pico-8 if you want some oldskool nostalgia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuaLuMhwcc8&list=PLvUqRm2B9R...

[euph0ria]

I just tried out Defold engine and it was super easy to get started with and well documented.

[AlexeyBrin]

Try the Godot engine, you could be up and running in less than one hour.